Irzan Raditya started founding companies around 2012 while living in Germany. Four of those startups failed before he built Kata.ai.
In 2015 he launched YesBoss, a virtual assistant that users could text. It needed people behind the screen, and the numbers did not work for a consumer product.
Around 2016 and 2017 he changed direction and sold the language technology to businesses. The company was renamed Kata.ai and built chatbots that understand Indonesian for banks, telecoms and retailers. The change meant layoffs for staff whose roles no longer fit.
Kata.ai raised a $3.5 million Series A in 2017, led by Trans-Pacific Technology Fund. A Series B followed in November 2020, led by Trans-Pacific Technology Fund and MDI Ventures with Buana Investama, and the company launched a tool for small businesses to automate chat sales.